I've always loved October 2nd. It is my grandfather's birthday...only two days before mine...and I grew up loving that my Papa and I shared birthdays so close together.
Well, it turns out that my Papa isn't the only one with a birthday on October 2nd. It just so happens to be Chuck Williams' (founder of Williams-Sonoma) birthday as well! This year, he turns 100!
Happy Birthday, Chuck!!!
Where would we be without Chuck? The man brought Nielsen-Massey vanilla and KitchenAid stand mixers from the professional world and made them available to the home cook. Thank you, Chuck!
In celebration, I made a cake. A marbled chocolate and sprinkle Bundt Cake. (You can find the pan, where else (?), at Williams-Sonoma.) I am in love this pan. The idea for the cake came from this one. I loved that striped effect.
After you make the batter and divide it, you'll add chocolate to one bowl, and sprinkles to the other.
Then, you'll spoon it into piping bags and pipe into the sections. Keep following this pattern, adding more batter as you build up the layers. Once you have the stripes piped in for a couple of layers, you can spoon in the rest of the batter.
The results weren't quite as dramatic as I was hoping for, but still fun...and tasty. That's the most important. I think my chocolate layer needed to be a bit more chocolatey for more contrast. Next time. :)
I thought a glaze or powdered sugar might take away from the layers, so I left the cake unadorned. By all means, add either of you'd like.
I adapted the recipe from this one from Food & Wine. The cake is nice and moist with a light chocolate flavor. It does make too much batter for this pan, though. When you get to 3/4ths full, stop. Don't be like me and use all the batter causing an overflow, and a smoke-filled kitchen. (The good news is, I learned that one of our cats will act like Lassie in a smoke situation and try her best to remove me from the premises. Sweet Bluebell.♥)
Marbled Chocolate and Sprinkle Bundt Cake
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon Dutch-process cocoa
3 & 1/2 cups cake flour
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup salted butter, room temperature
1 & 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
16 ounces 2% plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup jimmies (sprinkles)
Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a Bundt pan, getting every nook and kranny.
Melt the chocolate on low heat on the stove or in the microwave. Stir in the cocoa. Set aside.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until creamy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bottom and sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in the vanilla and Greek yogurt.
On low speed, add the flour in three additions, until combined, scraping down the bottom and sides of the bowl.
Divide the batter into two bowls. Stir the chocolate into one bowl and the jimmies into the other. At this point, either dollop the batters into the prepared Bundt pan, or spoon into piping bags and pipe in the sections as described above. Stop when your pan is about 3/4 full.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean or with a few crumbs. Place on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Place the wire rack upside-down on the exposed part of the cake. Flip the pan, so that the bottom of the cake is resting on the wire rack and let the cake rest for 1-2 minutes. Lift the pan off of the cake and let cool completely on the rack.
*this post was NOT sponsored by Williams-Sonoma, but they did send me a box of goodies to celebrate Chuck's birthday.
Happy 100th Birthday, Chuck!!!
